Pennsylvania No. 1 State in Interest in Wine

Fact Checked by Pat McLoone

For some, National Drinking Wine Day is every day, but officially it’s Feb. 18. So, PennStakes.com decided to take a break from Pennsylvania sports betting to decipher the states that are most interested in the fermented fruit of the vine.

According to Statista.com, the United States consumes the largest volume of wine of any country, at 34 million hectoliters in 2022. PennStakes.com – your source for PA online casinos  -  dug into Google Trends to discover the top 10 states most frequently searching “wine” between Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 2024. Based on these results, Pennsylvania came out No. 1 out of states most interested in “wine,” compared to other topics.

Top 10 States Most Interested in Wine

RankStateSearch Interest(Compared to Other Topics)
1Pennsylvania89
2Florida81
3Connecticut78
T-4Colorado75
T-4New Jersey75
T-4Maryland75
7California74
T-8South Carolina73
T-8Massachusetts73
10Oregon72

 

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The Keystone State Tops List

At first, we were surprised to see that Pennsylvania finished first in our research, but then we remembered Joel Embiid’s injury, and how the Eagles and Steelers finished their seasons. Pennsylvanians turned to wine in great numbers, even though they were feeling sour grapes.

The other reason Pennsylvanians love their wine is that there’s a lot of wine to love in Pennsylvania. While it doesn’t have the reputation of France or Napa, there are more than 300 wineries in the Keystone State and nowhere has more than an hour drive to find some locally grown vino, although we do recommend a designated driver for the trip back. Pennsylvania State Troopers do not care how much you enjoyed the Sauvignon Blanc, nor should they.

Alas, our favorite named winery, 5 Schmucks, in Harrisburg, seems to have closed, but there are wineries galore to visit at Pennsylvania’s eight wine tours – eight! – which should keep wine-lovers busy and tipsy.

If you have nothing to do, love the grape, and can afford a chauffeur for a wine-ding Wine Trail tour of Pennsylvania, you can start in the east in Philadelphia and head north to the Montgomery County Wine Trail, then farther north to Bucks County and even farther north to the robust wine country of the Lehigh Valley.  After that it’s west to Berks County, south to the Brandywine Valley, west to the Susquehanna Heartland, northwest to the Lake Erie Wine Country Trail and finally south to the Southwest Passage, before sleeping off your bleary-eyed hangover for a week in Pittsburgh.

Looking for quality and not quantity? In various contests, judges have ruled wines from Waltz Vineyards, Stony Run, South Shore, Karamoor, Fero Vineyards and Armstrong Valley, among the state’s best. But you might find that the products from another vineyard speak to you. There are many choices.

As for the rest of our chart, Florida came in at No. 2, although you’d think Floridians would need something a little stronger – they don’t even have legalized sports betting. The top 5 was rounded out by the white wine crowd in Connecticut, and wine enthusiasts in Colorado and New Jersey.

Cheers. Slåinte. Salud. L’chaim. 

Author

Howard Gensler is a veteran journalist who’s worked at the Philadelphia Daily News, TV Guide and the Philadelphia Inquirer and is a founding editor of bettorsinsider.com.

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